Mapping axillary sensory cutaneous nerves for enhanced analgesic approaches in axillary surgery: a cadaveric study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Innervation of the breast includes branches of thoracic intercostal nerves, the superficial cervical plexus, the brachial plexus, and the intercostobrachial nerve (ICBN). Commonly used blocks for breast surgery provide incomplete analgesia of the axillary region. This cadaveric study aims to identify and map the axillary sensory cutaneous nerves. METHODS: We conducted nine axillary dissections on cadavers of both sexes with cadavers in supine position and upper limbs abducted. Incisions along the anterolateral thorax and superior clavicle created laterally reflecting skin flaps, allowing visualization of the ICBN and brachial plexus. Photographs were taken during dissections to enabled three-dimensional reconstruction using imaging software 3D Slicer. RESULTS: In all dissections, an ICBN and a branch of the posterior cord were identified entering axillary subcutaneous tissue. A branch of the medial cord was identified entering axillary tissue in 5/9 (56%) cadavers. The ICBN remained localized to the anterior axillary base but demonstrated various extrathoracic branching patterns. The posterior cord branch arose from the proximal posterior cord before penetrating the axillary base at its posterior margin in all cadavers. When present, the medial cord branch arose from the proximal medial cord before penetrating the axillary base along the midaxillary line. CONCLUSION: In addition to the ICBN, two branches of the brachial plexus were identified entering axillary subcutaneous tissue. These branches are not currently considered when providing analgesia for breast surgery and may contribute to pain following surgery that involves axillary dissection.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".